Jared Kushner Reportedly Named Senior Adviser to the President, His Father-in-Law

For months, Trump watchers have been waiting to see where Jared Kushner would land in his father-in-law’s administration. While Kushner served throughout the campaign as one of Donald Trump’s most trusted advisers, there were questions about whether he would take on an official position in the White House or a more informal role; there were other questions, too, about how legal either position might be under federal anti-nepotism laws.

Now it seems that his position will be official . A day before his 36th birthday, Kushner has reportedly been named as senior adviser to the president, according to multiplemedia reports. This puts Kushner among his father-in-law’s inner-most circle, along with his close counterpart, chief strategist Steven Bannon, incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus, and Kellyanne Conway. Earlier this morning, Axios’s Mike Allen teased that an announcement on his role was expected, and that Kushner is already looking to staff up. A representative for Kushner did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.

Ivanka Trump, Kushner’s wife and Trump’s eldest daughter, has not yet announced what role she will serve, if any, in the Trump administration, though she has made it clear that she wants to advocate for economic issues affecting women. The young couple, who have three children, reportedly found a house around the corner from where the Obamas will move after the inauguration, and have, by all appearances, been adapting quickly to Washington life. Ivanka has been meeting with the likes of Queen Rania and Al Gore and partnering with a lobbying firm in order to get up to speed on policy issues, and she and Jared both dined recently with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, transportation-secretary nominee Elaine Chao, at the new Trump International Hotel blocks from the White House. Neither of them have any experience in politics. Both graduated from private schools, went onto the Ivy League, and ended up working for their successful fathers’ real-estate firms in their 20s. Having a couple, neither of whom earned a single vote, with such individual and collective power is a matter of historic significance.

It is still unclear how this conforms with the nepotism law enacted in 1967, after President John F. Kennedy appointed his younger brother Robert as attorney general, which bars government officials from appointing family members, including in-laws, to serve in federal agencies. But The New York Times reported over the weekend that Kushner had hired lawyers from WilmerHale to advise him on how to comply with ethics laws. According to his attorneys’ interpretation of the law, Kushner would be free to serve his father-in-law because the White House is not an agency, so it does not apply.

Even more opaque are the myriad conflicts of interest besetting Kushner, who currently presides over a family real-estate empire as sprawling as Trump’s, and which has billions of dollars worth of projects backed by foreign investors and financial institutions. Unlike the president, however, he would not be bound by the same ethics laws in his role as an adviser, and his representative has thus far declined to detail his personal financial interests in Kushner Companies properties. His spokeswoman, Risa Heller, told me over the weekend, before his plans were reported, that he would step down as chief executive of the company and divest “substantial assets.”

This puts Kushner in the company of a number of Trump appointees for top roles in his administration, including his father-in-law, who have a complicated thicket of competing business interests that they have yet to address. Trump is supposed to hold a press conference on the issue on Wednesday morning, after postponing one on the same topic last month.

Ivanka and Tiffany Trump’s Half-Sister Act

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By Catherine McGann/Getty Images.

A ringletted, towheaded, toddler Tiffany Trump drew both of her parents’ attention in New York City.